Morality within Roleplaying

[TygerDarkstorm]

This Dark Legacy comic made me think of this thread. ^_^

http://www.darklegacycomics.com/264.html

[Saturo]

That's actually a pretty good guideline to the various alignements. xD

Out of the characters I'd use here:
Decay: Chaotic Good
Stereo: Lawful Neutral
Saturo: Chaotic Evil

[Aweena]

I have no answers for you but it has taken me a very long time to even try out role play and all i can say is you can always ask people to maybe respect that you feel uncomfortable with the pure evil character they have made and i would most definitely not just accept some random guy coming up to me and go "Hi lets cyber!" witch i have had friends tell me have happened to them witch is why i haven't tried an rp realm until a few days ago when makkie said he would help me out

now i am exploring that aspect of the game and it is taking some getting used to for me as i am used to just dose trough the quests in the starter areas and i am feeling confident that i can just say no/stop if it gets to a level where i don't feel comfortable role play even in other situations usually have a flexibility to let you step out of character and say i don't like this so maybe just talk to your friends and the others who play and ask if they maybe would respect your wishes a little

[Mearra]

Why do you roleplay? I don't really roleplay much anymore, even though I am on an RP server. I used to RP back in the day with the "White-Wolf" games (VtM, MtA, WtA etc etc), I do roleplay a bit in D&D since I am currently in a tabletop campaign (Wild Elf Protector Shaman), but not so much in WoW. I can go along with something if among rpers and be respectful, but I don't actively seek it. I do have personalities, backgrounds etc for my toons in my mind, and some I've even wrote some short stories on.

How do you create your character's personality? Entirely depends on the toon and how I came to having them. Some just seem to come to life, some shaped for a storyline, sometimes they were already an idea in my mind, sometimes inspired by another character. In the old days I fleshed them out very deeply, and some were handed to me by GM/DM/STs because they really wanted me to play a character out for one of their storylines (somewhat flattering really)...I added a bit more fleshing and voila.

Do you feel comfortable playing an all-out "evil" character, or working closely with someone who does? I don't really feel comfortable with evil characters, I never have. It's not really 'in' me. Not full out evil ones, even in video games, I always think "Oh, my second play through I can be evil" and then I never get around to it. My best friend always plays the evil side, so he can always tell me what happened.
As I said, some characters were handed to me, or positions in a storyline, sometimes those characters were more...evil. One being a Lupus Theurge (ex Uktena) Black Spiral Dancer with a split personality. Her primary personality was very feral and submissive, she only cared about the spirits she tended to for her leaders, she did as asked and lost herself in that world even though what she was doing wasn't right. Her other side was triggered whenever highly stressed and in danger, and that side was vicious, manipulative etc. Which is how I put myself through it, the main side I played just had to be submissive, loyal to her pack leader and only doing what she wanted her to do, even if it was binding evil spirits to people and helping produce fomori (monsters in essence). My terminologies may be off, but please forgive me, it's been many years since I've played.

If you do enjoy playing an "evil" character, why? I guess I need to be in a certain mindset even to play out those characters too. Tela-Wrath *the BSD* I actually liked as a character because she was complicated, she didn't choose to be a spiral dancer, it was all wrong place, wrong time, and unfortunately, survived the dance.
I can play out the crazy, I can play out the selfish and greedy, some violent, but outright evil and cruel? No. I feel bad. (Heck I even won't roll need against people in WoW if I need an item but I know the person rolling against me.) It's just harder for me, it's one thing letting them be a darker character in general, but once it starts heavily effecting those around them, I start to feel uncomfortable in my own skin.

And what do you do when you feel uncomfortable with a situation that crops up in a RP? Back in the day, I'd either withdraw if possible and if it could work within the storyline, or I'd step aside ooc with the other player and discuss it with them and how to make things work or if we could skip ahead.
I saw someone mention sexual aspects in RP, that makes me uncomfortable. I understand sometimes in a storyline it's a logical step, but I prefer the "Well we know what happens, lets fast forward" response. Particularly if it's an online RP, too often it's a risk of someone else expressing sexual desires and when you're a chick gamer..it's too high of a risk of the other gamer pushing for that style/direction of rp repeatedly (as one has already stated being pushed to an uncomfortable situation over and over again). I've been there, seen it happen, didn't like it and would rather not put myself in that position again. (Playing a BSD can take you dark places, many that made me uncomfortable, avoiding them/skipping forward worked for me. Fortunately she wasn't my primary character in the storyline). I've even had a DM push a more erotic character on me, he said it was to see me play a totally different style of character (Since my main at the time was an incredibly disciplined Khan, he decided to toss me a Cult of Ecstacy mage in the next campaign). I bent her so she was more enthralled with fire and such thrills than sexual or drug induced to avoid any additional discomfort.

Currently in my D&D campaign I am starting to get uncomfortable, even though things haven't "gone dark" yet. The Fighter in the group is going more and more brutish, while I am not, nor is my character. She has a high wisdom score, she's patient, genuinely kind, though she does understand the world isn't a nice place. The rules of nature she understands in depth, you have to survive. But she doesn't believe in unnecessary violence. You kill to survive, defend yourself or to eat, you respect your environment since it is what gives life. The Fighter? He'll break a kids arm for just giving him a rude response to a question. The rogue of the group is a follower, he will follow whomever leads him, the strong fighter is a dominant personality. The druid of the group doesn't care as long as nature isn't being harmed, if it is, he's fine with unleashing the fighter on whomever is harming it. The wizard is basically just using the group to keep him safe while he pursues his own goals and tries to remember his past (and get back at whoever trapped him where we found him).
Even if the group turns more for an evil route, my shaman is stuck. The way she's tied into the group is that she was sent to protect the fighter due to a prophecy that he would fulfill. He dislikes her, he is a half orc and hates elves due to their long life span, apparent arrogance, and one had killed his parents (so in his mind, all elves are bad, except the half elf druid who is only redeemable because he is half human). So here she is healing a group and protecting a man who says rude comments to her all the time, doesn't seem to think anything ahead (which bothers her, she likes to think about everything, she even meditates before she rests..she's a bit eccentric that way), he constantly gets the group into trouble because his need to be up in everything (if there's an avoidable battle...he'll engage it, if there is a trap....he will trigger it due to the fact he will ignore the warning signs around it). On the plus side, he does keep the party and story flowing, less stagnant parts where the rest of us over thinkers would be.

You might want to think of the same deal if your group won't bend. You have to give your character a reason to stay. Zath'eera has no choice, this is what she was sent to do, she can try to guide them with her wisdom to make better choices, try to temper his rage before it kills him, or just try to keep him alive until he reaches his goal. (Though as of last session, if the zombie rot turns him...well..she gets to kill him. Maybe then he can reroll a nice monk...) Maybe she can appeal to the high IQ wizard to help her bend the fighter to some smarter choices..who knows. But if you don't want to leave the group or reroll, you need to give yourself a reason for the character to stay, or watch them get twisted into a downward spiral. Endless possibilities as long as the DM is willing.

This post got way too long, back to leveling my second hunter and periodically checking on my main hunter for Arcturis and Krush spawns ^_^.

[Raydex-of-the-dawn]

Oh, allignments, allignments. Let's see...

Raydex: Varies, generally Neutral Good and lapsing both ways on the "Neutral" part of that
Drassil: Lawful Good, leaning to Neutral Good
Deadlock: Chaotic Good
Mockingbirds: True Neutral leaning Chaotic Good
Varali: Neutral Good
Garwal: Neutral Good
Phyrran: Chaotic Neutral, leaning to Chaotic Evil
Julius: True Neutral, leaning towards Lawful Evil
Skettis: True Neutral
Ruin: Very Variable
Ssera: Chaotic Good
Lucia: Neutral Good
Wysteria: Lawful Evil, at times leaning Neutral

[Schatzy]

One thing I forgot to mention in my previous post is that for those of you who play good characters trying to deal with evil or neutral-but-almost-evil group members is that there's actually a D&D supplement that has useful advice for dealing with situations like that. It's called The Book of Exalted Deeds (it's a D&D 3.5 supplement), and it has a large array of suggestions involving what to do in situations of questionable or diabolical moral standing and how to act to play as a good character and perhaps persuade the other characters to take the moral high ground as well. Conversely, for those of you who enjoy evil characters or want new options for evil characters, there is the book's opposite, The Book of Vile Darkness.

I know I kind of sound like I'm advertising here, but I've read a decent portion of each of these books and both have interesting information (I particularly like some of the prestige classes in The Book of Vile Darkness).

[Loffter]

I've had this problem too. Me and my houshold (roomates) play DnD once a week, and my first character was a good druid wilden. That lasted 2 sessions, when my party and I got into a combat where I was against them because they were killing stablhands for no reason. So I re-rolled as a pirate human warlord. I still couldnt bring myself to be evil, so I followed my own code of conduct, to which I was constantly mocked as the worst pirate ever. I was also constantly in RL conflict with our halforc ranger, because he is a jerk IRL, plus he always got made when I called his (8 int) character dumb, or when I brought up how violent and evil the group was and I didnt agree with it. These turned into shouting matches..

Now I am playing an eccentric wizard. He is good, but he is there to record prophecy and watch it unfold, so while he may not agree with what the group does, he will stick it out to the end to see how the prophecy plays out. It's like a dream come true for him to get to watch a major prophecy happen in person. He's a bit awkward and bookish, but hes so fun to play. I get to say the most random stuff too.

"So what was meeting Bahamut like? Wait.."
*Blank stare from party as I pull out some scrolls and look over them*
"Erp...never mind, forget I said anything. Carry on!" *walks away*

As for the questions

Why do you roleplay?- I dont really.. I mean, I try to when it comes up, but I mostly like min/maxing, coming up with backstories and personalities, and the combat.

How do you create your character's personality?- They end up just being a different aspect of myself. My Wilden was innocent, trying desperatly to do the right thing. My pirate was a bit selfish, but when it came to crunch time, she did what she wanted and tried to, at the very least, not hurt other people without provocation. My Wizard is just... his kind of like me, but with a mix of Luna Lovejoy or whatever from harry potter.

Do you feel comfortable playing an all-out "evil" character, or working closely with someone who does?- No.

If you do enjoy playing an "evil" character, why?- No. I am naturally a good person.. I cant help myself. even creatures on a peice of paper, i cant be mean to them..

And what do you do when you feel uncomfortable with a situation that crops up in a RP? I get into a huge argument with my roomate because hes a big jerkface.

[Davarra]

Why do you roleplay?

Honestly, why NOT? Even if I'm not on an RP server, I've always lightly RP'd my characters. Same with EQ.

My Iksar beastie was a deaf-mute who communicated with her pet purely via hand gestures and body language. Woe betide the person who got my mage's elemental killed, for her motto was "You can be rezzed, the pet can't.". My Iksar monk simply *ached* to be accepted in the good cities and refused to kill any of the good types, even at the cost of a real death.

My NE hunter has always shared my admiration for Thrall and unhesitatingly loaned him her wolf, to be the mother of a new line of furry companions for him. The wolf showed him trust, how could she not do the same to someone with such obvious liking and respect for the species?


How do you create your character's personality?

They create themselves, as often as not; a single event starts to form things and it goes from there. Likewise the pets. Furball is lazy, he was happy to take a rest once I finally picked up my first alternate pet in the 60s, Spike with his goofy ravager grin is simply the most laid back critter around, and Bounder is indeed a very happy puppy, as evidenced by his constant bouncing and play.


Do you feel comfortable playing an all-out "evil" character, or working closely with someone who does?

Really depends on your definition of evil, I suppose. I thoroughly enjoyed my two-legger-hating druid in NWN, who was considered chaotic evil. She would never hurt an animal, and never lower herself to even be polite to a person. OTOH, she wasn't really the rape murder and plunder type, she just simply COULD NOT CARE LESS.

Kid's been taken? Go whine at someone else, treekiller. Dog's gone missing? Point the way!

Some of my other characters are definitely skirting the line. Gnarka the orc warrior just plain likes to fight. Skill at arms is the sole measure of personal worth. If you start it she ends it, no concern if it's a misunderstanding or something.


If you do enjoy playing an "evil" character, why?

It's simply their personality. The druid mentioned above started out as a discussion with hubby along the lines of "We've always picked every good, selfless option in every convo as long as we've played NWN. Feel like rolling a couple of utter jerks to try out the bad ones, just for fun?"

It was an interesting experiment but I admit it made me cringe at times seeing the responses, even if I liked the character herself.

As for others, it's just the character.

I've never gotten into any crazy evil Kefka/Putricide types, but the vengeful evil types...well, vengeance has a reason, even if you don't agree with it. Coldly evil as well. Think of the abovementioned orc as a Mitsurugi type. She wouldn't knife someone in the back for no reason, but she feels no sorrow about someone she has to kill. Her skills are superior, thus she is worthier and lives.

And what do you do when you feel uncomfortable with a situation that crops up in a RP?

Avoid, time skip, work around, or get past as quickly as possible.

I'm not really liking the forced edit to my druid's description, she most certainly WOULD cheerfully assault someone if she felt they had done something to warrant it. Assault isn't the word I used there, but anyone reading this surely knows the common phrase enough to figure out what I actually typed.

[Worba]

I don't RP in wow but I used to do it in D&D, long ago. Though I haven't played it recently I know D&D has undergone massive changes, including tons of flexibility with character creation...

As long as the players in question have evil alignments (or whatever covers that function under the new system), and the DM holds them accountable for their actions (e.g. guards summoned if innocents attacked or laws broken, etc), then it sounds like your friends aren't technically doing anything wrong.

What I used to see alot of, was players rolling whatever race/alignment fit the class they wanted (e.g. paladins, usually), and then proceeding to do whatever they thought most "expedient" in-game, e.g. engaging in casual ultra-violence. Some NPC sassed them? Throw it off the roof. And darker things.

When confronted they would either try to contrive some completely twisted logic to explain why a lawful good character would regularly engage in chaotic evil behavior, or else simply fall back on the "It's just a game (tm)" defense.

Have I tried playing evil characters? Yes, and I found it pretty boring. Why? Because if you're evil you can do whatever you feel like, and never have to make hard choices or put yourself on the line for someone else, in short - all you're doing is running around stealing, killing, and breaking things.

But I recognize that for other people, causing random mayhem and destruction in a virtual environment gives them a vicarious thrill. These are people who probably are a bit edgy IRL, have a bit of an "Eff 'em all" attitude and like loud noise and bright lights, and consider their conscience to be more of a hindrance than anything else.

As far as what to do in an uncomfortable situation in an RP game... you are walking a bit of a fine line there; if these are people you care about, you don't want to get all holier than thou after all they are probably just doing this to unwind and find some escape from daily cares and frustrations... on the other hand you can't ignore your own feelings either.

I'd suggest speaking to the DM 1-1 out of game about your concerns, and explain that you will try to gently moderate the other players' behavior, and could the DM perhaps help in that regard. E.g. next time a "torture" scenario arises, you can say "let me talk to him first - give me a chance to try", and see how it goes. If the DM is sympathetic to your views, he probably will ensure you have something to show for being the responsible one, and which in turn will probably get the message across to the others that pure violence and nastiness isn't the only route that works.

Sometimes newer players will use violence and narcissistic behavior to cover for the fact that role playing (e.g. acting their way through a conversation with that hobgoblin) makes them nervous, and if you are good at / comfortable with roleplaying, you can sometimes help ease those fears by power of example; ideally, a little here and there, those guys will start trying to roleplay as well - and as roleplaying normally involves more talking and less whacking, their behavior may in turn become less disturbing to you.

Ultimately though if these guys are "hardcore" about acting "Clockwork Orange" in-game, then you may have to opt out of playing with them, if doing so makes you consistently uncomfortable.

[Melianne]

Why do you roleplay?
I role-play because I'm a writer at heart, and I love to help create stories. I also enjoy the 'escapism' of being 'someone else' for a little while. It lets me be creative and interact with others and try out new role-play, as well as get to make friends and improve my own writing (I hope) by interacting with others. However, even if I'm 'alone', I role-play: quests, PvP, instances. Within reason, I'm in-character 99% of the time.


How do you create your character's personality?
Most of my characters just start as a general idea with a general background, and the more I play them, the more I get to know them. They change with every role-play and quest, sometimes in small ways and sometimes in big. I am one of those people that hates to retcon or ignore role-play, even if it is god-moding or something childish, simply because I think it is wrong to pick and choose too much. Part of the fun of role-play is never knowing what is going to happen and having to react. This is within reason of course. I won't kill my character over someone random coming up and going "I stab you to death before you can blink! Haha!", for example.


Do you feel comfortable playing an all-out "evil" character, or working closely with someone who does?
I don't think I've ever role-played an all-out evil character. I've had a few that were completely moral-less and had almost no real empathy toward anyone or anything, but they were never deliberately evil or vicious. They never hurt someone just to hurt them for fun, or because they were bored. However, they would do any job given if paid right and would not hesitate to kill if they deemed it necessary.

Personally, I find most 'evil' acts more cartoonish and silly myself. Most of the role-players I know who call themselves 'evil' are either simply arrogant, sadistic, or trying to go for shock factor. I had some one who was playing an 'evil' character hiss at my friend's character that he 'wanted to eat her unborn child'. To me, this wasn't evil but simply silly and shock factor, which made the other characters just look at him like he was crazy. Most of the evil I've seen involves random, pointless destruction, which to me is more chaos and insanity than evil. I guess its just a sort of opinion, but to me, evil, real evil, has an intent or purpose, not just randomly breaking or blowing something up so you can stand in front of the fire and cackle. I suppose it is a fine line, but if they're destroying just to make everyone go 'ohhh, they're scary!' it's just a bit silly to me. Even in World of Warcraft, the 'evils' had a purpose and a reason.


If you do enjoy playing an "evil" character, why?
It is interesting to play a character that toes the line, but it isn't really to my taste and I don't tend to play them a lot, or I have them evolve eventually into something I'm more comfortable playing.


And what do you do when you feel uncomfortable with a situation that crops up in a RP?
If a situation comes up, I simply try to excuse myself from it. As corny as it sounds, I have no right to tell someone how to role-play or what they want to role-play. If I find it ridiculous, offensive, or just plain irritating, I make an excuse and leave the situation as politely as possible.

If it is a close friend doing it, I usually try to talk to them gently out-of-character and explain how I feel as carefully as possible. A lot of people get highly offended or angry if you dare question what they are doing. Personally, I don't mind. If I do something odd, I'm happy to explain it. If it's 'too much' for the other person, I either cut back or do not mention it. I have changed backgrounds and stories a bit to help properly fit time lines or edit out a 'faux pas' that I have made. I don't mind getting outside the 'norm' a bit, but I try to stay in lore.

Honestly, it irritates me to no end when someone does something extreme or completely outside of lore to be a 'special snowflake' and then throws it into others' faces constantly by bringing it up as much as possible, or hinting at it in every post. I personally hate the response 'I think its neat so I'm going to do it, even if everyone says they hate it'. To me, that is extremely selfish and rude to the people you are role-playing with.

[Andine]

Why do you roleplay?
In WoW, I don't roleplay often, since it's very hard to find someone who treats roleplaying seriously. Either you will find some random goofs (nothing wrong with that, I enjoy rp'ing something just wacky from time to time too, but, you know), awful Mary Sues ("I'm the forgotten kid of Jaina and Arthas, my age was accelerated by Gul'dan who went into the future just to do that, and then Ner'zhul raised me as a DK, to spite Arthas"), or people who don't know jack-sh*t about lore of Warcraft ("who was nezuel?"). In WoW, I limit myself to basic outline of character's story and personality somewhere in my mind... and it rarely goes anywhere.
Outside of WoW, I roleplay to enjoy something I can't do in real life - fight monsters and demons, and experience the big, important stories.

How do you create your character's personality?
Often I look at what character is - say, undead hunter. Then I think what an undead hunter can possibly be. When I started Andine on the beta, I thought she would be a Sylvanas fangirl, a newly trained dark ranger who wants to be like that awesome Dark Lady. But over time she evolved into a more individual beast, mostly because of how her progress happened - I started using guns more oftan than bows or crossbows (dark rangers use mostly bows), because of just how enjoyable to my ears is the sound of a gunshot from the safe distance of a computer screen. Then I started using more and more unusual pets, outside from my main "tank", Ashbury the bear (named after the funny glitch in Silverpine). Andine became quickly a trigger-happy, goofy undead marksman (no, specced beastmastery ), who doesn't really care about morality as long as she can shoot things.

In other times, I have some basic idea first - like, righteous crusader, but alien - and then I fit a race and a class onto it. Like is with my main, Xarthat, draenei paladin. He has consistent personality from start to finish, that of a neutral good paladin that cares mostly for helping others and protecting them from harm, but is somewhat disillusioned with how many blood mortal races shed just to dominate one another. Basically, he's very much like me in real life.

And then, some ideas just come together like that. Like Arridor, the goblin priest. Once I thought how silly a goblin priest would be, a very pythonian type of humour. Soon, all of the stuff combined together and created a silly goblin priest who enjoys making holy hand grenades, is named after a Ferengi and preaches Researchology. He's a walking comedy, that's what he is.

Do you feel comfortable playing an all-out "evil" character, or working closely with someone who does?
If I'm playing with a character that's closer to me, like Xarthat, I do not enjoy working with evil characters. I know I won't work with people like that, and so won't Xarthat, he'd rather smash their face with a hammer (I do not have a hammer on hand usually, sadly). When I'm playing for laughs, as long as someone doesn't cross any thresholds... I'm okay with it. But if they're doing clumsy "for evulz" type of stuff, I will not work with them, at all. Period.
Sometimes I do play evil characters. The most openly evil one must have been that warlock I once played in a homebrew p&p game. He drew sadistic pleasure out of torturing people, but he still had background behind it - he was a son of a nobleman and a servant, being abandoned in a young age, and living below the standards of society. As a weak and sick child, he couldn't even defend himself. Until he learned the dark arts of a warlock - not only taking revenge on all people that harmed him was very sweet for him, he enjoyed it a bit too much. Trying to one-up even powerful demons, he'd stop at nothing to finally get himself what he wanted. Because he never could before.
So no "for evulz" characters. Every one has motivations behind it.

If you do enjoy playing an "evil" character, why?
Sometimes it's emotionally releasing to melt a few faces and torture souls forcibly stolen from their bodies. Sometimes you just need to horribly maim a pixelated bystander to feel better after meeting a good deal of idiots and jerks in real life. And what better way to do it than with magic?

And what do you do when you feel uncomfortable with a situation that crops up in a RP?
First, I tell people that I'm uncomfortable. If they do nothing, ignore me, or just do it intentionally to piss me off, tough - I quit. It's not worth it. I roleplay to enjoy myself, not to argue with yet another bunch of idiots.

Sorry for being not very concise, you don't have to read all of this, as most is just backstories to some of my characters.

[Kalasha]

Why do you roleplay?

Why wouldn't I? I can't believe people will spend nights on end staring at the idiot box, saying almost nothing to each other. And according to popular culture I'm the geeky weirdo for trying to imagine something myself, all the while being inspired by my friends depictions of their characters. But if mr and mrs 'Let's watch Top Models on TIVO' want to call me a nerd because of that, I guess I'm a nerd ^^

How do you create your character's personality?

I know I'm a bit unorthodox in that way, but I usually go for the "inside-out" method. I usually imagine a basic PC build from whatever rulebook we might be using, and after some details about his/her present personality and mannerisms, I just start playing. The greater backstory (their previous life, how they became who they are today) usually comes to me as I am playing the PC. It's not that I think starting off with long background stories is a bad idea, I've done it myself a few times (usually at the request of the storyteller/DM) but I prefer my way. It helps me focus on their personalities and their ways of interacting with other (N)PC's for the first few sessions, and when the role becomes natural to me I can start fleshing out their hidden history and sharing it with the other PCs.

Do you feel comfortable playing an all-out "evil" character, or working closely with someone who does?

TBH I've never encountered an all-out evil character that I didn't find horribly boring. It's the difference between a fanatical darwinist druid who simply doesn't acknowledge that intelligent humanoid life might be more important than animal lives and a guy who runs around killing everybody in his path and licking the blood of his sword. Everybody is capable of evil acts, but evil for evil's sake quickly becomes boring and repetitive.

If you do enjoy playing an "evil" character, why?

Well, some of my characters might be considered evil by others. The druid I decribed before would be apalled to see a weak person ruling over people far more capable. Something that is quite common among humans is that they can inherit social standing from their parents, like a prince. To my PC that's not just encredibly stupid, but actually evil, because he sees it as a weakening of the human race, a speed boost in the run towards extinction. So when he opposes the inbred royal family that rules over our fictional kingdom, he's declared an outlaw and a traitor (funny considering he isn't human so he doesn't see how he could be a traitor, but anyhoo..) the point is my PC is actually trying to help those silly humans. Or at least that's how he sees it. I guess I'm trying to say that I don't enjoy playing evil per se, but things can get interesting if one of my PC's does something (admittedly) horrible to someone else because they truly believe it's the right thing to do

And what do you do when you feel uncomfortable with a situation that crops up in a RP?

With my regular group it rarely comes up, because few of them are fans of the combc-villain subtype. But when it does we usually talk it over after that night's session. When I DM and see it happening, I wrap up the scene ASAP and move on to the next. A little joke during on of those 'awkward silences' usually works as well, as long as it isn't a cruel joke

[Moore]

I don't mean to intrude on this thread, I was just wondering if someone were wanting to get into D&D how would I go about it?

[Tudyk]

It's harder to be good at being evil than anything else I've tried to pull off while roleplaying. Most of the time you just come off looking like a jerk, or being the kind of guy everybody KNOWS is only "evil" so he can do whatever he feels like without having to deal with his char's morality issues.

I've never managed an all-out "evil" character (I just don't have the RP chops for it ;p), but have VERY much enjoyed playing with some folks who did. I used to play a MUD called DragonRealms, and one of the PC's was REAAAAALLY evil. Like "Yes, I killed your wife and unborn child. And just so you know I meant it, that disgusting mess you saw my girlfriend munching on this morning was their hearts. Good luck finding the rest of them" evil. But they stuck to it.

Played DnD in college, and had a pair of "evil" characters whose characters had obvious motivations (not just "ooo this'll piss the good players off ..." or "oh it'd be FUN to do THIS 'cause everybody else can't!"). The players were fully aware of the fact that our story meant the "good guys" were going to win in the end, and were prepared for what happened to their chars as a result. =D

*shrug*

The most annoying char I ever personally ran around with was lawful good ;p

[Moonlost]

I don't mean to intrude on this thread, I was just wondering if someone were wanting to get into D&D how would I go about it?

Sorry for the much belated reply.

Okay, so the best way to get into D&D is to see if any of your local hobby stores have a D&D Encounters session running there. Encounters is, supposedly, a little weekly event, where you can get your feet wet with D&D and see what the game si about. Wizards also does events at a few conventions, such as PAX, if those are arround your area. There may also be a local group looking for a few new members if you're lcuky.
Check Wizard's Store and Event Locator to see if there's anything nearby.

Of course, the easiest way is to pick up the books yourself, grab a few friends who might be interested and give it a go. For people completely new to the game, I advise picking up the Red Box, which is a very condensed, very basic version of the game.

Finally, you can always try finding a group to play with online. Yeah, it doesn't have the feel of grabbing a few mates and playing on your table, but it can be pretty fun nonetheless. I know a number of people who've had great success with this. (And to tell the truth, I'd be half tempted to try and get something going with some of the people in this forum if it weren't for timezone troubles.)